Insecurity, harsh climate wreak havoc in the Sahel region
Friday November 06 2020
Senegalese soldiers of the UN peacekeeping mission Minusma on patrol in Gao, Mali, on July 24, 2019. Insecurity has rocked some regions in West Africa. PHOTO | AFP
The Sahel region has been going through tough times with a population ravaged by poverty induced by hazardous weather, internal crises and insecurity.
Countries in the region include Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, and the northern part of Nigeria.
The climate is arid and hot, with strong seasonal variations in rainfall and temperature. With a population of more than 84 million, of whom 80 per cent live on less than $2 a day, the region was already poor. The people live a nomadic life, trading with other parts of the region.
Now, the threat of violent extremism has become one of the biggest challenges for countries in West Africa, according to a recent bulletin by local regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
Sahelian countries are also experiencing unprecedented levels of organised violence particularly Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the menace of Boko Haram terrorists in northeast since 2009 has cost the country more than 36,000 lives and rendered millions of people homeless, official records show.
The downturn in economies of the Sahel region is attracting global attention.
US FUNDING
The US government, on September 25, in Abuja, announced that it has provided nearly $152 million to countries of the Sahel region as humanitarian assistance.
In a statement released to the African Regional Media Hub, US secretary of state Michael Pompeo said the country remains the largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to the Sahel region.
Mr Pompeo said the funding includes nearly $67 million from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and more than $85 million from the US Agency for International Development's Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.
"Our assistance will provide critical protection, livelihoods, shelter, essential healthcare, emergency food assistance, safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene services for refugees, internally displaced people, and vulnerable host communities,” he said. However, at a donor conference on October 20, the UN said hundreds of millions of more dollars will be needed.
Head of the UN Emergency Aid Mark Lowcock said donor countries should also help the region on the southern rim of the Sahara Desert because it is a breeding ground for extremists and criminal groups.
Over the past few years, jihadist groups have mobilised and radicalised people in the Sahel, a region plagued by systemic, political and socio-economic problems.
These groups are now spreading to the coastal states. They include Ansar Dine, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Mourabitoum and Boko Haram.
CLIMATE CHANGE
At the online conference, hosted by the government of Denmark, Germany, the EU and the UN, Mr Lowcock said, "If things deteriorate in an alarming way there will be consequences and implications for everybody.”
He said climate change is also stoking conflict, as farmers and herders fight over dwindling fertile land. The number of people who have been uprooted from their homes in the region has increased more than 20 fold to 1.6 million in 2020 alone.
The UN said it needs $1.4 billion to provide urgent humanitarian aid to more than 13 million people in the three central Sahel countries this year, but so far only 39 per cent of that sum has been provided.
Ibrahim Thiaw, the executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, said, "Every day you have more conflicts among people that are competing for access to land and water. The root cause of the competition is access to natural resources.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria set up Operation Sahel Sanity in addition to the Multinational Joint Task Force to fight Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin. The troops come from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger.
There is also a Joint Force of the Group of Five of the Sahel (G5 Sahel), comprising Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, addressing violent extremism in the region.
The acting director of Nigeria Defence Media Operations, Brig-Gen Bernard Onyeuko, said the troops are recording more successes against bandits and other criminal elements. The Ecowas Sahel Strategy, an action plan of 31 priority projects, created a $4.75 billion fund to create stability in the region.
The UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for West Africa and Sahel, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said countries will have to work together with partners to attain lasting peace, security and sustainable development.